A sex offender who was found guilty of abusing a young girl is on the run having fled to Tunisia. The trial was told how he deliberately preyed on the youngster’s vulnerabilities, touched her sexually and made her watch pornography for his own gratification.
Nottingham Crown Court heard how Miloud Arouri flew to his home country in North Africa the day after a jury convicted him of his crimes.
Now the police will continue to try to track down the 38-year-old and put him behind bars should he come back to the UK, report the Nottingham Post.
Jailing him for nine years and seven months in his absence, Judge Steven Coupland said: “The defendant in this case, Miloud Arouri, has failed to attend his sentencing hearing following a trial.
“A warrant has been issued for his arrest and he remains out of this jurisdiction, having flown to his home country of Tunisia. The police will try to use all means necessary to bring him back to the UK.
“In terms of the case he knew she was vulnerable and suffered an eating disorder and she had self-harmed. He manipulated the situation by telling her she would not be believed if she told anyone (about what had happened to her).
“In her victim impact statement she says she has been torn apart and feels constantly tainted, saying she is serving a life sentence because of what he did.
“He has shown no remorse for his actions, taking the matter to trial, so his actions have caused her to relive what he did and she had to have it put to her that she was lying when the liar was, in fact, the defendant.
“His lack of remorse has also clearly been demonstrated by him fleeing the country.”
A trial earlier this year heard how Arouri abused the young girl when he lived at an address in Nottingham. Dawn Pritchard, prosecuting, said he “touched her breasts and kissed her” on a number of occasions.
The prosecutor read out part of a victim impact statement in which she said “this has had a huge impact on me”.
She said he also persuaded her to touch herself sexually for his own gratification and made her watch pornography.
Arouri, more recently of St Swithin’s Close, Derby, was found guilty of charges including sexual activity with a child and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity. He has no previous convictions of any kind.
Steve Gosnell, mitigating, said: “There is very little I can say other than he was a man of previous good character prior to this.
“I don’t have any personal mitigation. I was asked to put it to (the victim) at the trial that this was deliberate and malicious fabrication on her part and by the jury’s verdicts that does not hold much sway.”
As well as the long jail term, the judge placed the defendant on the sex offender register for life.